October 26, 2010

It's been a while since we heard from MOTEV in these precincts, but she did call me up today to say "It appears your blog has returned to its old standards." I suppose that could be a backhanded compliment of sorts, damning with faint praise (standards?), but being the momma's boy that I am, I will take that as a compliment from someone ill-disposed to empty praise and flattery ...

July 28, 2008

These days, it's not often MOTEV gets her mitts on a book we don't have. The conversation usually goes like this:

MOTEV (Don't forget the Austrian accent): Maaaaark, by any chance, do you have a copy of -

TEV: Yep.

MOTEV: Vat "yep"? You don't even know yet.

TEV: Trust me. Whatever it is, I have it.

MOTEV: Big shot. Maybe this one you don't.

TEV: Try me.

MOTEV: [A title we have already.] (Silence) Fine. Can you send it to me?

But every now and then, she beats us to one. She's been championing Travis Holland's The Archivist's Story ever since it came out. (We still don't have our own copy and she won't part with hers. Dial Press, we're talking to you.) Well, she'll be pleased to know it just won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.

Holland’s novel, published in June 2007 by The Dial Press, centers on Pavel, a former teacher who works in the Lubyanka prison archives in Moscow in 1939. Pavel prepares manuscripts for destruction in the service of Stalin-era limits on free expression. Then he comes across an unsigned manuscript apparently written by the famed author Isaac Babel, who has been imprisoned at Lubyanka. Pavel attempts to salvage the work, and later an additional manuscript, for posterity.

August 14, 2006

As promised, MOTEV responds to the meme that's been making the rounds. After the gymnastics of trying to explain a meme to her, along with the usual protestations ("How can you do these things to me?"), we pried the following answers out of her. Herewith, MOTEV's meme debut"

One book that changed your life.

MOTEV:Oh boy.I don’t think there is a book that really changed my life.There were too many things happening in our lives that changed us.

One book that you’ve read more than once.

MOTEV:Hmm.The Magic Mountain.Because when you read it when you are too young, I don’t think you get it.And since everybody talks about it you feel later that you have to read it because you probably didn’t get it.And then you read it again. And you get it.Or you think you get it.And when you think you get it, a couple of years later you realize that maybe you didn’t get it all.So, I read it again.

One book you’d want on a desert island.

MOTEV:The Bible.It has the most stories in it!

One book that made you laugh.

MOTEV:Oh well, that’s a Hungarian book that I read a long, long time ago and I almost got kicked out of a class in college because I was reading it under the desk and I laughed out loud, but nothing in the lecture was conducive to laughing out loud.It’s not available in English but it’s called The 14-Karat Car.I don’t remember the author.

One book that made you cry.

MOTEV:Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows.Very gut-wrenching and very sad comment on life and history and the ironies of politics.Very true.

One book that you wish had been written.

MOTEV:What do you mean?

TEV:Just what it says.A book that doesn’t exist that you wish had been written.

MOTEV:Well it might be written for all I know! Mark ... Let me think.I don’t know.I can’t come up with anything – there are so many books that have been written that I think some of them should not have been written.It’s 86 degrees and it’s before dinner.I’m not up to this.One should think about this.

One book that you wish had never been written.

MOTEV:I’m sure there is one but right now I can’t think of it.Can I come back later?

One book you’re currently reading.

MOTEV:Yours.You’ll be relieved to know that’s not that the one I wish hadn’t been written.

One book you’ve been meaning to read.

MOTEV:Absurdistan.The title sums up the state of the world today.And I like his style.He really has a feel for the absurd in the world and can express it.

February 03, 2006

The only thing we like more than giving away books is posting our little chats with MOTEV. But we do try to dole them out since she's far more popular than our own caterwaulings are. Still, we know you've been clamoring for a dose, and we managed to catch up to the busy retiree between book groups, the opera, Broadway and museum outings, and she kindly consented to give us a minutes of her time to chat books.

TEV: So what are you reading?

MOTEV: I'm finally reading Howard's End.

TEV: And?

MOTEV: I'm enjoying it so much I can't believe I never read it. I'm just loving it. And then I thought of Shirley Hazzard's Transit of Venus, and I thought, OK she had good taste about where to borrow from.

TEV: Borrowing is part of the game

MOTEV: That's right. Have you read it?

TEV: Not yet. I've had it for a while - someone I respect recommended it highly but I haven't gotten to it yet.

MOTEV: What's taking so long?

TEV: Have you read The English Patient yet? Which I gave you, what, seven years ago?

TEV: OK then. So, any thoughts about the literary controversy of the day?

MOTEV: Frey?

TEV: Yeah.

MOTEV (the world's deepest long suffering sigh): I don't see what's the big ado – no one should assume that a memoir is true. One shouldn't read memoirs and assume they're true – they should read them as fiction and assume they're not true. I'm actually on his side. He misrepresented himself to the media but what he did in his book, that should be a writer's right

TEV: You should tell Oprah …

MOTEV: And this mania for "truth"? What is completely True or Not True? There should be a limit on talking about it, and anyway what about the right of the writer to do with truth whatever they want to? As long as they say that it's my version of the truth. Think about the definition of "memoir" ... Read Casanova's memoirs!

TEV: (typing quickly to keep up with her indignation) Uh huh …

MOTEV: (pause) Are your MOTEVing me?

TEV: You know, "to MOTEV" isn't actually a verb. (pause; busted) I may be …

MOTEV: Oh please! But this is my opinion. I thought it was fine that Oprah defended him first and then I caught the moment when she said "you mislead me" – that's stupid! He's not on trial. He's a writer. I think the whole controversy is helping his sales. They couldn't pay for better advertisement. That's all. And next time you MOTEV me without saying so first, I'm disinheriting you.

TEV: So, did you see the Booker long list was out? MOTEV: Yes. TEV: And what did you think of it? MOTEV: (sniffs) All known names. TEV: Is that good or bad? MOTEV: (an unusually long pause, during which we imagine eyes to be narrowing) You're not MOTEVing me? TEV: Of course not. How can I "MOTEV" you? MOTEV's not a verb.MOTEV: Are you lying? TEV: (pause) Maybe a little. MOTEV: (weary sigh) I think it's not very good. It's somehow always the same people … and now I'm self-conscious because you're typing. TEV: You’ve never been self conscious before. MOTEV: I've never been used before. (sighs) This was my thought: it would be nice to see another name there for a change. And I have a problem with this Commonwealth thing or with English writers thing which brought to my mind that many of these writers are not English, so I don't know, what is the definition today of "English literature"? Is the language it's written in, is it geography where the writer lives? Where does it come from? TEV: An excellent question and I have no idea. Colonies, it's all about colonies. What do you think about the Saturday nod? MOTEV: I told you when I read it that I didn't dislike that book. TEV: Have you read any of the others? The Ishiguro? MOTEV: Which is that? TEV: Never Let Me Go. MOTEV: No. Which are the others? TEV: If you read my site once in a while, you'd know. MOTEV: I didn't read your site Why don't you email it to me? TEV: Banville is on it. Coetzee is on it, Zadie Smith is on it. MOTEV: With what? TEV: On Beauty. It's not out yet MOTEV: Then how can she be on it? TEV: That's another excellent question. Obviously, they get early copies. MOTEV: I don't think that's fair. TEV: Welcome to my world. And Ali Smith – you liked Hotel World, didn't you? MOTEV: Yes, I did, I really did. I think it was original, it grabbed me, it stayed with me. TEV: So, it's early but do you want to handicap the winner yet? MOTEV: I would need a little more time for that … and I don't know the works … how would I do that?TEV: That doesn't stop most of the pundits. MOTEV: I'm not like most of the pundits TEV: Well I'll send you the list, and you can come back with your predictions. MOTEV: OK.

April 11, 2005

The staggering amount of work and email generated by Friday's unveiling of the Litblog Co-op and Saturday's subsequent Los Angeles Times story has us scrambling and behind schedule today. Our LA Times Thumbnail is in the works (and lest anyone accuse us of going soft on the Times in exchange for the nice story, fear not - the grade is a low one), as is a bunch of other interesting links we've collected. In the meantime, we leave you with this bit of MOTEV news: She will be joining us for the May 20 John Banville reading in NYC, so come out and touch the hem.

As we persuaded her to make an appearance, we also collected these two squibs which we share now. (We'd have gotten more but we were driving on the freeway, and so our transcription abilities were limited.)

March 08, 2005

We try to space out the MOTEV appearances - keeps them special and besides, there's only so much of each other we can take at a time. But we received a bunch of insistent inquiries seeking a clearer definition of mondvacsinalt. Who knew that would be the burning literary issue of the day? So we picked up the phone once more and pressed the MOTEV button ...

TEV: So, I'm being pressed by my readers for a more specific definition of mondvacsinalt.

MOTEV: Created with artifice … artificially … give me a little time to come up with that … (sighs) I can't think … You know that we're snowed in here?

TEV: Then you've got time to think about it.

MOTEV: Mondvacsinalt … oh God … what would be a good English word? …. Created by words only … words without substance … maybe that's the closest to it. But don’t put that in yet … give me 10 or 15 minutes … your readers won't die of curiosity.

TEV: Ok call me back …

(15 minutes later the phone rings.)

TEV: Hello?

MOTEV: (getting right into it) Artificial, trumped up, make-believe. That's the closest I can come with it. But the flippancy of the Hungarian word --

TEV: -- Flippancy? --

MOTEV: -- yes, the wit, is missing in all of this. What, did I misuse flippancy?

TEV: No, but I thought you might have said "slippancy". Which I didn't understand.

MOTEV: Flip.

TEV: Got it.

MOTEV: Anyway, I spoke to [Hungarian Book Group Friend] and looked a few things up and that's my best shot. Is it adequate?

We finally caught back up with MOTEV who's been keeping a full reading list between her two reading groups and was, as always, eager to vent with us. For those of you new to MOTEV (Mother of The Elegant Variation), she's a former professor of German literature. It helps to imagine her pronouncements delivered with a Viennese accent.

TEV: Hey did you ever finish Enduring Love?

MOTEV: (exasperated) No.I just can't.

TEV: Why not?

MOTEV: I just can't get into it …It annoys me and I don't enjoy reading it.And I said, you know what?I don't enjoy this. So I stopped.I got maybe one-third through.

TEV: What did you hate about it?

MOTEV: Everything

TEV: That's specific and helpful.

MOTEV: OK.I don't like the characters. The characters so annoy me.The beginning, this whole balloon .. the whole scene is mondvacsinalt … (TEV Note: A Hungarian expression that eludes translation.)

TEV: Let me see if I can figure that out … "says what's it's doing"?

MOTEV: No.Well, it's pretentious.It's artificial.I just can't get into it.Nothing.Except chapter five where he talks about the narratives of science, that was interesting.For that I had to read 80 pages?(sighs) I'm probably missing something.He's some people's favorite author, the big cheese in contemporary literature, and I can't get friendly with him.He doesn't sound real to me. Everything is cerebral and not real.

TEV: Have you read anything else of his?

MOTEV: I read Amsterdam which I thought was witty in a macabre way.And Atonement.

TEV: What did you think of Atonement?

MOTEV: Too long, too verbose.I didn't think much of that either.Sorry.I can see I'm falling off my pedestal in great leaps and bounds.

TEV: (gasping) Not at all.

MOTEV: Not my writer for sure.Shirley Hazzard on the other hand in Transit of Venus – now that to me is writing.

TEV: You know I like her, too.

MOTEV: Writers where I feel that the word comesfrom within, not just from the typewriter.

TEV: So what's up next?Who dares mount the scaffold next?

MOTEV: (laughs) What are we doing this weekend?Oracle Night …

TEV: Auster.

MOTEV: Yes. Another I feel he can write but he is, a what is he, a stylistic juggler –

TEV: - which you don't care for.

MOTEV: I don't know.I read all of that book.It didn't annoy me as much as Enduring Love did.And I also read that Dog at Midnight book …

TEV: Oh, The Curious Incident.And?

MOTEV: Charming,I like it.The language retains the mentality of the boy, doesn't want to be clever doesn't want to be, what, fireworks of words and whatnot . .. it is very honest and true sounding from the voice point of view.

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

RECOMMENDED

This slim volume by the president and founder of the Nexus Institute, a European-based humanist think-tank, stands as the most stirring redoubt against the ascendant forces of know-nothingness that we've come across in a long time. A full-throated, unapologetic defense of the virtues of Western Civ – in which "elite" is not and never should be a dirty word – this inspiring exploration of high art and high ideals is divided into three sections: The first looks at the life of Riemen's great hero Thomas Mann as a model for the examined life. The second imagines a series of conversations from turning points in European intellectual history, populated with the likes of Socrates, Nietzsche and others. The final section, "Be Brave," is nothing less than an exhortation to dig deep, especially in times of risk. The notion of nobility of the spirit might strike some modern ears as quaint but it seems more desperately necessary than ever before, and there are worse ways to read the accessible Nobility of Spirit than as a crash refresher in the Great Thinkers, free of academic jargon and cant. As a meditation on what is at stake when the pursuit of high ideals is elbowed aside by the pursuit of fleeting material gain, however, Nobility of Spirit might well be the most prescient book we've yet read on what's at stake in the current election cycle and in the developing global situation. Agree or disagree with Riemen's profound, ambitious and high-minded plea, you will be thinking about his words for a long time. It's been ages since a work of non-fiction moved us this way. Read it. Discuss it. Argue about it.

With rave reviews from James Wood, Michiko Kakutani and Dwight Garner, it might not seem like we need to tell you to drop everything and go read Netherland, but we are telling you, and here's why: The way book coverage works these days, everyone talks about the same book for about two or three weeks, and then they move on and the book is more or less forgotten. Whereas a berth here in the Recommended sidebar keeps noteworthy titles in view for a good, long time, which is the sort of sustained attention this marvelous novel deserves. A Gatsby-like meditation on exclusion and otherness, it's an unforgettable New York story in which the post 9/11 lives of Hans, a Dutch banker estranged from his English wife, and Chuck Ramkissoon, a mysterious cricket entrepreneur, intertwine. The New York City of the immigrant margins is unforgettably invoked in gorgeous, precise prose, and the novel's luminous conclusion is a radiant beacon illuminating one of our essential questions, the question of belonging. Our strongest possible recommendation.

"History," wrote Henry James in a 1910 letter to his amanuensis Theodora Bosanquet, "is strangely written." This casual aside could easily serve as the epigraph of Cynthia Ozick's superb new collection Dictation, which concerns itself with lost worlds evoked by languages -- languages which separate and obscure as readily as they bind. It can be risky to look for connective tissue between stories written years apart and published in magazines ranging from The Conradian to The New Yorker. But themes of deception, posterity, and above all, the glory of language -- at once malleable and intractable -- knit together this quartet, recasting the whole as the harmonious product of Ozick's formidable talent. Read the entire review here

Now, on the one hand, you scarcely need us to alert you to the existence of a new J.M. Coetzee novel, or even to have us tell you it's worth reading. But we can tell you - we insist on telling you that Diary of a Bad Year is a triumph, easily Coetzee's most affecting and fully wrought work since Disgrace. Formally inventive, the book intertwines two narratives with the author's own Strong Opinions, a series of seemingly discrete philosophical and political essays. The cumulative effect of this strange trio is deeply moving and thought provoking. It's increasingly rare in this thoroughly post-post-modern age to raise the kind of questions in fiction Coetzee handles so masterfully - right down to what is it, exactly, that we expect (or need) from our novels. It's telling that, for all of his serious pronouncements on subjects ranging from censorship to pedophilia to the use of torture, it's finally a few pages from The Brothers Karamazov that brings him to tears. Moving, wise and - how's this for a surprise - funny and lightly self-mocking, Diary of a Bad Year might well be the book of the year and Coetzee is surely our essential novelist. We haven't stopped thinking about it since we set it down.

David Leavitt's magnificent new novel tells the story of the unlikely friendship between the British mathematician G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, mathematical autodidact and prodigy who had been working as a clerk in Madras, and who would turn out to be one of the great mathematical minds of the century. Ramanujan reluctantly joined Hardy in England - a move that would ultimately prove to his detriment - and the men set to work on proving the Riemann Hypothesis, one of mathematics' great unsolved problems. The Indian Clerk, an epic and elegant work which spans continents and decades, encompasses a World War, and boasts a cast of characters that includes Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lytton Strachey. Leavitt renders the complex mathematics in a manner that resonates emotionally as well as intellectually, and writes with crystalline elegance. The metaphor of the prime number – divisible only by one and itself – is beautifully apt for this tale of these two isolated geniuses. Leavitt's control of this dense, sprawling material is impressive – astonishing, at times – and yet despite its scope, he keeps us focused on his great themes of unknowability and identity. The Indian Clerk might be set in the past but it doesn't resemble most so-called "historical fiction." Rather, it's an ageless meditation on the quests for knowledge and for the self – and how frequently the two are intertwined – that is, finally, as timeless as the music of the primes. (View our full week of coverage here.)

Joshua Ferris' warm and funny debut novel is an antidote to the sneering likes of The Office and Max Barry's Company. Treating his characters with both affection and respect, Ferris takes us into a Chicago ad agency at the onset of the dot-bomb. Careers are in jeopardy, nerves are frayed and petty turf wars are fought. But there are bigger stakes in the balance, and Ferris' weirdly indeterminate point of view that's mostly first person plural, underscores the shared humanity of everyone who has ever had to sit behind a desk. It's a luminous, affecting debut and you can read the first chapter right here.

Coming to these shores at last, John Banville's thriller, written under the nom de plume Benjamin Black, has drawn rave reviews across the pond since it first appeared last October. Those who feared Banville might turn in an overly literary effort needn't worry. Influenced by Simenon's romans durs (hard stories), Banville unspools a dark mystery set in 1950s Dublin concerning itself with, among other things, the church's trade in orphans. At the heart of the book is the coroner Quirke, a Banvillean creation on par with Alex Cleave and Freddie Montgomery. Dublin is rendered with a damp, creaky specificity – you can almost taste the whisky.

Scanning our Recommended selections, one might conclude we're addicted to interviews, and one would be correct. If author interviews are like crack to us, then the Paris Review author interviews must surely be the gold standard of crack (a comparison Plimpton might not have embraced). The newly issued The Paris Review Interviews, Volume I (Picador) rolls out the heavy hitters. Who can possibly turn away from the likes of Saul Bellow, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Jorge Luis Borges, Dorothy Parker, Robert Gottlieb and others? The interviews are formal and thoughtful but never dry and can replace any dozen "how-to" books on writing. What can be more comforting than hearing Bellow, answering a question on preparations and conception, admit "Well, I don't know exactly how it's done.” The best part of this collection? The "Volume I" in the title, with its promise of more volumes to come.

The best short story collection we've read since ... well, certainly since we've started this blog. And we might even say "ever" if Dubliners didn't cast such a long shadow. The short story is not our preferred form but D'Ambrosio's eight brilliant stories are almost enough to convert us. Defy the conventional wisdom that short story collections don't sell and treat yourself to this marvel. (We're especially partial, naturally, to "Screenwriter".)

What would you do if the woman who’d left you high and dry ten years ago called out of the blue to invite you to a party without any further explanation? If you’re French, you’d probably spend a lot of time pondering the Deeper Significance Of It All, which is exactly what Grégoire Bouillier does for the 120 hilarious pages of The Mystery Guest. This slim, witty memoir follows Bouillier through the party from hell, and is a case study in Gallic self-abasement. Before it’s all done, you’ll set fire to any turtleneck hanging in your closet and think twice before buying an expensive Bordeaux as a gift. But fear not – just when it seems that all is, indeed, random and pointless and there is no Deeper Significance, salvation arrives in the unlikely form of Virginia Woolf, and the tale ends on a note of unforced optimism. Parfait.

When George Ticknor's Life of William Hickling Prescott was published in 1864, it received rapturous notices, and reviewers were quick to point out that the long-standing friendship between Prescott and Ticknor made the latter an ideal Boswell. Sheila Heti has pulled this obscure leaf from the literary archives and fashioned a mordantly funny anti-history; a pungent and hilarious study of bitterness and promise unfulfilled. As a fretful Ticknor navigates his way through the rain-soaked streets of Boston to Prescott's house ("But I am not a late man. I hate to be late."), he recalls his decidedly one-sided lifelong friendship with his great subject. Unlike the real-life Ticknor, this one is an embittered also-ran, full of plans and intentions never realized, always alive to the fashionable whispers behind his back. Heti seamlessly inhabits Ticknor's fussy 19th-century diction with a feat of virtuoso ventriloquism that puts one in mind of The Remains of the Day. Heti's Ticknor would be insufferable if he weren't so funny, and in the end, the black humor brings a leavening poignancy to this brief tale. But don't let the size fool you — this 109-page first novel is small but scarcely slight; it is as dense and textured as a truffle.

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you and yes, we are recommending a Believer product. Twenty-three interviews (a third presented for the first time) pairing the likes of Zadie Smith with Ian McEwan, Jonathan Lethem with Paul Auster, Edward P. Jones and ZZ Packer, and Adam Thirwell with Tom Stoppard make this collection a must-read. Lifted out of the context of some of the magazine's worst twee excesses, the interviews stand admirably on their own as largely thoughtful dialogues on craft. A handful of interviewers seem more interested in themselves than in their subjects but in the main this collection will prove irresistible to writers of any stripe - struggling or established - and to readers seeking a window into the creative process.

John Banville's latest novel returns him to the Booker Prize shortlist for the first time since 1989's The Book of Evidence. In The Sea, we find Banville in transition, moving from the icy, restrained narrators of The Untouchable, Eclipse and Shroud toward warmer climes. Max Morden has returned to the vacation spot of his youth as he grieves the death of his wife. Remembering his first, fatal love, Morden works to reconcile himself to his loss. Banville's trademark linguistic virtuosity is everpresent but some of the chilly control is relinquished and Max mourns and rages in ways that mark a new direction for Banville - and there's at least one great twist which you'll never see coming. Given the politicized nature of the British literary scene, Banville's shot at the prize might be hobbled by his controversial McEwan review but we're rooting for our longtime favorite to go all the way at last. UPDATE: Our man won!

We've been fans of Booker Prize winner John Berger for ages, and we're delighted to have received an early copy of his latest work, Here is Where We Meet. In this lovely, elliptical, melancholy "fictional memoir," Berger traverses European cities from Libson to Geneva to Islington, conversing with shades from his past – He encounters his dead mother on a Lisbon tram, a beloved mentor in a Krakow market. Along the way, we're treated to marvelous and occasionally heart-rending glimpses of an extraordinary life, a lyrical elegy to the 20th century from a man who - in his eighth decade - remains committed to his political beliefs and almost childlike in his openness to people, places and experiences. There's no conventional narrative here, and those seeking plot are advised to look elsewhere. But Here is Where We Meet offers a wise, moving and poetic look at the life of an artist traversing the European century from a novelist whose talent remains undimmed in his twilight years.

In his recent TEV guest review of Home Land, Jim Ruland called Sam Lipsyte the "funniest writer of his generation," and we're quite inclined to agree. We tore through Home Land in two joyful sittings and can't remember the last time we've laughed so hard. Lipsyte's constellation of oddly sympathetic losers is rendered with a sparkling, inspired prose style that's sent us off in search of all his prior work. In Lewis Miner's (a.k.a Teabag) woeful epistolary dispatches to his high school alumni newsletter ("I did not pan out."), we find an anti-hero for the age. Highly, highly recommended.

SECOND LOOK

Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel is the tale of Florence Green, a widow who seeks, in the late 1950s, to bring a bookstore to an isolated British town, encountering all manner of obstacles, including incompetent builders, vindictive gentry, small minded bankers, an irritable poltergeist, but, above all, a town that might not, in fact, want a bookshop. Fitzgerald's prose is spare but evocative – there's no wasted effort and her work reminds one of Hemingway's dictum that every word should fight for its right to be on the page. Florence is an engaging creation, stubbornly committed to her plan even as uncertainty regarding the wisdom of the enterprise gnaws at her. But The Bookshop concerns itself, finally, with the astonishing vindictiveness of which provincials are capable, and, as so much English fiction must, it grapples with the inevitabilities of class. It's a dense marvel at 123 pages, a book you won't want to – or be able to – rush through.

Tim Krabbé's superb 1978 memoir-cum-novel is the single best book we've read about cycling, a book that will come closer to bringing you inside a grueling road race than anything else out there. A kilometer-by-kilometer look at just what is required to endure some of the most grueling terrain in the world, Krabbé explains the tactics, the choices and – above all – the grinding, endless, excruciating pain that every cyclist faces and makes it heart-pounding rather than expository or tedious. No writer has better captured both the agony and the determination to ride through the agony. He's an elegant stylist (ably served by Sam Garrett's fine translation) and The Rider manages to be that rarest hybrid – an authentic, accurate book about cycling that's a pleasure to read. "Non-racers," he writes. "The emptiness of those lives shocks me."